Everything Begins Here
by Aestivate
Summary: For the 15pairings challenge on Livejournal, and to  hopefully  cure my writer's block. Rated K  to T, multishipping.
1. Catching Stars

**Everything Begins Here**

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By,

Aestivate

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Summary: For the 15pairings challenge on Livejournal, and to (hopefully) cure my writer's block. Rated K+ to T, multishipping.

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**Author's Note:** I began this… Sometime last year? And then I gave up on it because I simply ran out of time, but now it's summer and I have SO much time, but I also have terrible writer's block that's prevented me from my other fics, or for writing new ones. Yeah, sorry about that.

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This is going to be a drabble collection of sorts? Really, short one-shots more than anything, so yeah. Each chapter will feature a new one, and a new pairing, and at the end will feature my notes on the drabble/one-shot.

I've chosen to work with List 3.

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**Drabble #1: Catching Stars**

**Pairing: Advanceshipping**

**Theme # 13: Stargazing**

**Word Count: 684**

Satoshi was often bemused by Haruka's strange hobbies. Her brother and Takeshi were both sleeping nearby, while Satoshi and Haruka loitered by the fire. One waited for the other to become sleepy enough to retire for the night. Satoshi could feel his eyelids drooping and tiredness beginning to make his body ache, but he was staring into the sky because she was staring into the sky and there was no use pretending otherwise. She'd asked him to stargaze with her and he figured he ought to have tried it for a while, but a while had passed and now he couldn't feel anything except a mixture of confusion and stupidity.

What did she see up there that he couldn't?

He was getting bored and it was getting harder to concentrate. The sky didn't change. It was the same thing every night, and the same stars where in their same locations, and yes, they were bright, and yes, they were pretty, but stars are only stars. They look the same every night too, and for that reason he was bored with them. Restlessly, he blinked hard, rolled his eyes, and dropped his increasingly stiff neck to look at Haruka, amazed that she was still soundlessly and resolutely admiring the steadfast heavens above. Her hair was out of its bandana, spreading wildly in the humid and still summer air. There was a look of wonder etched in her face, lighting her eyes with such energy and passion that Satoshi couldn't help but notice was so much more illuminating than the star-dusted sky above.

The night was exceptionally warm, not helped at all by the fire blazing between them, and yet while watching her, Satoshi couldn't help but feel a chill creep down his neck, and a blush creep up it.

There was something he was definitely missing.

If she noticed that he was no longer interested, she certainly didn't show it on her face. The expression of wonder never flickered once, even when she opened her mouth to speak. "They're so beautiful, aren't they?"

"They're just stars," Satoshi blurted before he could stop himself, and he was sorry at once when the spell was broken and she looked down.

Her expression changed into something softer, something that actually looked like pity. What she said was completely unexpected. "Everything's got to be so literal with you," she said, almost sadly.

"What do you mean? Stars are just stars. They're the same every single night." He didn't know why, but he was getting frustrated.

"If you just paid more attention, you'd truly see the splendor of this moment."

The blush on his neck deepened as his confusion deepened. She took his silence as to understanding his not understanding.

"See, if we look up at the night sky right now, we'd think it is endless. Stars are a part of a much bigger whole, the universe. Looking up, I can see tomorrow. I can see my dreams laid out before me, spreading endlessly but coming together and becoming a part of me." She raised a hand to the sky, as if trying to grab her stars right out of the expanse. "They're right above me, and because I'll never be able to touch them, I know I'm never going to give up. That's what the stars are, and that's why they're beautiful."

Suddenly Haruka stood up stiffly to her full height, and stepped around the fire to relocate herself directly next to him. He tried not to look even more confused when she decided to lean against him, and he clumsily freed his arm and placed it around her thin shoulders. Soon she began to breathe deeply and steadily, apparently asleep.

He looked back up at the stars, this time in wonder. He took a deep, calming breath, as if he needed one, his breath stolen from their beauty. From them he peered down at the sleeping form under his arm, feeling with mixed emotions and slight bewilderment that he had somehow succeeded in touching a star.

Never before had Satoshi appreciated beauty so much as he did tonight.

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**Notes on drabble**: Err… Yeah. This is one (of two) that I wrote last year when I began the challenge. I don't really like it because I feel it doesn't have a ton of emotion, but… ah. Everything just seems hollow after Roses and Marigolds, I guess. I neeeeeed to get out of my advanceshipping writer's block slump. Heh. You tell me how it is.


	2. The Pull

**Drabble #2: The Pull****  
****Pairing: Pokeshipping****  
****Theme #3: Separation anxiety**

It is on days when the gym is quiet, her sisters are out of her hair, and her poor (yet darling) Koduck isn't drowning, that she can't help but think of messy black hair and the darkest eyes that still seem to be so vibrant that the image of them is imprinted in her mind. She reaches into her shorts pocket and pulls out one of her precious blue badges, perfectly round except for where it begins, as a droplet of rain.

Usually, she tries hard to not live in the past, but today the memories are overflowing, beginning and proceeding in distorted images but always ending in the intensity of his gaze. With a pang she realizes that her badges aren't representative of rain at all, but of tears, and discovers with an even greater shock that she is in love.

She stares into the water where her feet are comfortably soaking in, at her own reflection. She never considers herself a lovesick girl, but over the image of her absently curling her ginger-colored hair, she sees his determined expression, always rough around the edges but enough to make her heart beat a bit faster even though she knows he is so very far away. She takes the badge in her hand and throws it into the pool, because she does not want to think of him, and how much she dearly misses him. Her fingers reach her face and come away wet.

With a short rush of water, which almost sounds like waves, the mermaid leaves solid ground and completely immerses herself in the water where she is usually more comfortable, more in her element. Her beloved water Pokémon swim around her, and yet the loneliness is barely staunched.

After she swims she returns to her quarters and decides that she wants him to know that she's thinking of him. She needs to know she's thinking of him, and yet she doesn't want to be thinking of him. Trying to remain nonchalant she turns toward the window sill, and underneath it is the answer and she smiles, tilting her head slightly, for the first time in what feels like forever. She only hopes it will pull him back to her.

The answer makes him realize that he is in love.

It is on days when gym battles are miles away, the others are left to their own agendas, and his (darling) partner Pikachu isn't being stolen, that he can't help but think about the orange side ponytail and the eyes that look like the ocean. He reaches into his jacket pocket and he pulls out what started it all, what caused him to find her (or rather, caused her to find him but does it really matter how it began?), when she fished him out of the river so many years ago.

Usually, he tries to not think of the girl whom he thought was nothing except for overbearing and noisy, but the images of how he was so very, very wrong come together and make his chest tighten and his breath quicken until it aches so hard it makes the room spin and the only remedy is to see her.

He stares into the water, to which he attributes to her so much and so well. He sees himself frustrated and confused and although he was never really good at even recognizing affairs of the heart (that is to say, he was oblivious), but realizing how much he means to her becomes even more lucid than the lost face staring back up at him.

It's not like he tries to think of her. It just happens. She flows into his mind and his heart and his body and his soul as fluidly as water. Clutching her super-deformed semblance in his hand, he grips it tighter, realizing that the answer was with him all along.

How funny it is, how she gave him a _lure._ He realizes at once, that it is exactly what he needs to go back to her, for her to reel him back in.

_Satoshi, good luck. I miss you. I hope you haven't forgotten about me._

And under his breath, he says the only true thing: "I miss you too. Bring me back to you."

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**Notes on drabble:** Well, I'm not much of a Pokeshipper, but I really like how this one came out. The streams of conscienceness-style is really apparent in this one. I make both characters seem really angsty, but that's just my style, I guess. I'm not really into light-hearted, although I probably should be. This is also one of two that I wrote last year (along with the advshipping one), and I'm going onward with more... Haha. Wish me luck, I guess.


End file.
